In the Public Interest

House Speaker Tom Foley (Dem. Wash.) is a most unlikely authoritarian. Soft-spoken and quasi-scholarly, Foley would not ordinarily be associated with lock-out Congressional procedures and swift-railroading of his proposals through the House. But this week, he was producing a giant sour turkey before Thanksgiving in the form of a $30,000 salary increase for his House…

The 43,000 mile interstate highway system, started under President Eisenhower, is now complete. And too much of it is falling apart, requiring large maintenance-repair costs. Potholes, large fissures and cracks and undulations are too frequent a sight on the nation’s streets and highways. The jolting wear and tear on vehicles, the long lines of cars…

“I have drunk from wells I did not dig; I have been warmed by fires I did not build.” Law professor, Robert Fellmeth, opened with this ancient anonymous saying in his recent address before the Second North American Dr. Carl Menninger Youth Care Conference. Fellmeth focused on the obligation of the human species to its…

The first move the electric company that owns the Diablo Canyon plant in southern California took on hearing that an earthquake had struck the San Francisco bay area over 500 miles to the north was to shut the plant down. The reason: Diablo Canyon is an atomic energy facility. It is remarkable how little attention…

Over 60,000 workers are on strike against the “Baby Bell” giant, NYNEX which has a legal monopoly, through its subsidiaries, on local telephone service in New York state and New England. The core of the dispute is NYNEX’s demand that its fully-paid family healthcare coverage move into a shifting mode onto the employees, starting with…

I attended a Hispanic-American convention recently and saw a variety of corporate sponsors sporting their identity. So, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) released its report last week titled “Marketing Disease to Hispanics,” I was not surprised. Not until I read the shocking contents which documented the nature of the epidemic.…

Tokyo, Japan — This is an export-driven country that qualifies for the title of the “poorest rich society” in the world. It is a country with a booming gross national product that is forgetting about the welfare of its own people. Consider, for example, the lethal triangle of cancer. Japan’s tobacco policy is one of…

Tokyo, JAPAN — This booming economy, which includes the highest paid workers in the world, has exploited severely what an economy is supposed to be expanding. The well-being of consumers. In some ways, consumers live in a state of near poverty by U.S. standards. Polls reflect that most Japanese feel poor. Housing is the first…

The opening of several U.S. branches of large corporate law firms and mergers-and-acquisitions partnerships in Tokyo can be the start of a new industrial strategy toward the Japanese economic juggernaut. In short, if you can’t beat the Japanese companies with the strength of American quality competition, then export the weaknesses of our economy and make…

About 200,000 children are rushed to hospital emergency rooms every year due to playground injuries. The customary explanation for these injuries is that “kids will be kids.” They get carried away with themselves and they fall or bump their heads on the recreational equipment. Well, closer study has shown many injuries either to be caused…